Sunday, September 30, 2012
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Cough Drop
I squeeze the wrapper of the cough drop, popping it into my mouth and tossing the wrapper out the window of the car, my eyes darting over to see if my passenger noticed. She didn't. I look at the road again, only peripherally aware of my surroundings.What I don't realize is the symphony of other sensations passing through the air as I focus on that which is close at hand, the stinging menthol tickle filling my senses as I bite into the cough drop. What I don't acknowledge are the subtle things being communicated between my body and hers. I have a strange sensation that she's looking at me, as her glands begin to release that particular pheromone that tells my body to respond and I turn to catch her gaze and I confirm that I am, in fact, a mind reader.
I wonder how long it will be before science documents these other senses as my body, through scent and a subtle language of body movement that few are acute enough to recognize communicate back to her that I adore her gaze and I want her to keep looking, and that later, I'd like to get closer to her.
To which her body responds, I'd like that as well. And I continue driving, blissfully unaware of our conversation, and wondering at my new found psychic powers.
Topic Interception
Today's Topic, because I'm sick as a dog and riding a NyQuil high is...Cough Drops
Friday, September 28, 2012
Your hair surrounds me, clean and soft as it falls over my eyes
I can feel your longing, I can sense your desire
I see your beauty and your strengh
Your passionate moan pulls me forward
Fully present, Alive
More then the original five
Have you even been driving and turned your head to look into the eyes of someone looking at you? So many people I know have described this ever event to me. When they explain this to me, everyone speaks to the idea that they somehow sense that person looking at them. I have experiencing this myself too many times to count.I remember hanging out with some friends and a buddy was seriously hitting on his date. Her friend that was hanging out with us wasn't getting the same amount of attention. I remember something in my brain told me I need to turn my head away from the buddy and his date to the friend as if I had been given a message. As I turned my head, the friend attacked me with a very passionate kiss.
There are senses we don't understand yet. Ways of perceiving the world around us that we cannot yet explain with science. But I believe that a day is coming, a day where we will agree that there is more then the original five.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
The Instant Messager program
She and I exchange various one liners for about a half hour. Nothing of substance. Joking, more or less. Yet each line exposes a bit of ourselves to the other individual. I slip a cuss word into a line and she asks me not to use such language. I gain an understanding of the photos.Later, things turn more serious. We share feelings and ideas that matter, not just mindless crap. We bear a bit of soul to each other. Not enough to make ourselves venerable but enough to show that we want to interact with the other in a more serious manner.
Things come to an end and we make plans to 'bump' into each other online in this fashion again soon, allowing each of us the chance to seek the other out without the need to set a time. The flexibility of the Internet at its finest.
Will anything come of this? It is a crap shoot but isn't life about the journey and not the destination? Online flirting would qualify as the journey indeed.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
A wink and a nod
A gesture, a movement
A look deep in your eyes
An embrace held longer
A whisper, a secret
A brush of your hand
A flip of my hair
A walk, an attitude
A feeling shared
A moment
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Monday, September 24, 2012
Online college courses
There has been a rash of groups putting college level courses online for free. Since they are free, they don't provide any college credit but I have found myself spending a lot of time thumbing through them web site and becoming more and more excited about the offering I am finding.I just don't understand why? Am i harboring a secret desire to go back to school? Is it simply my love to learn new things? Is there some kind of hope within myself that these courses can lead to a change in my current employment?
I guess I need to pick a course and explore these options and see what comes of it.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Water Rides
Traveling to a theme park is always exciting and I usually look forward to it months in advance. I feel giddy like a child upon entering the gate and experience the day as carefree enjoyment, not to be interrupted by anything or anyone.That is, until we hit the water rides. Somehow, I always neglect to think about the ramifications of getting soaked through without having a change of clothes. The moment of realization comes when you take that first, wet seat into the ride, where a puddle from the last poor rider remains. After this, I tend to feel a bit icky for the rest of the day.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Can ya feel it?
There is a crispness to the air. The leaves have not changed yet not dusk comes earlier. You need a blanket at night. A jacket is required in the morning but not in the afternoon. You don't want to roll the windows down on your way to work. Summer has retired for the year and given way to Fall.
Friday, September 21, 2012
Seussian Politics
(I'd like to make my own little illustrations to go with this...)To speak the words I’d like to say
Means they might take my job away
To do the things I’d like to do
May fail those I have obligations to
In this country it’s a myth
One every citizen must live with
Freedom has it’s price, you see
To be paid for by you and me
Soldiers giving up their lives
For foreign oil, greed and lies
Slave wage workers need a lift
As they head out for their second shift
Healthcare costs are way too high
Without attention the poor will die
I want to see my freedoms thrive
To see my people stay alive
We need to build community
To see potential, living free
Filling the absence of a topic
My fellow Americans, let it be known heretofore that today's topic shall be writ by the people as...!Freedom of Speech
Objectively Better Than Our Ancestors
It is an absolute fact, save a brief and unfortunate plateau during the Dark Ages, that each successive generation is better than the one before it in nearly every statistical respect. Things are better today than they have ever been. With each passing year, infant mortality is a smaller fraction of what it once was in our savage days. There is less disease, less war, less violence, less bigotry, more understanding, better technology, more social progress, with each generation and yet people will fight that fact no matter what evidence is presented to them.Data and facts be damned, every generation will say about it's successors, this generation is lazy, disrespectful and stupid! And every generation will simply be wrong. While we should strive always towards our ideals, and though we delight in the theatre of the stories we tell ourselves about how terrible the world has become and what a dire predicament our species is in, the fact nonetheless remains that today, everything is better. And tomorrow, everything will be better still.
Don't allow this information to make you complacent; do not let it extinguish your desire for a better world for your children. But take comfort in knowing that we have always solved our most critical problems and will likely continue to do so. And just as it was for people just 500 years ago, though cynics certainly demolished the idea as preposterous, it will only be a few centuries time before the world you have always desired to live in will more or less manifest itself, with it's own problems, but with those we experience now as ancient relics of a less civilized era. And they will perhaps look back at this transitional time and think "How could they not have dreamed of something better?"
But we did, in the darker recesses of the social mind; we do dream of better things. As our ancestors did, and as our predecessors will, and history shows that we will slowly but inevitably achieve that better life, one way or another. The hubris of the human race tricks us into believing that no matter where we are in our history, modern times are the pinnacle of human achievement, and science is at it's zenith.
But the fact of the matter is, we are one rung on the ladder, higher than those before it and lower than those to come. And we can take comfort in the knowledge that the Homo Sapien species is still evolving. And we are, as a race of beings - as a plurality of entities - growing up.
and counting...
Screw that shit, that growing up
shit, that growing older rag where the knees get weak the eyes dim and the back
hurts when you roll your eye balls from side to side, YES, sometimes it’s just
that easy to upset a bad back! Screw this growing older madness where people
can break your heart and break your spirits and have a go at your self esteem just
because they can, and because of the specter of poise and civility, which is
held to you after a certain age, you’re just supposed to eat these things
without some sort of emotional reaction, which, yes, perhaps can cause you to
burn down a church (frowned upon, by the way) but would also alleviate a lot of
the negation and the un-fulfillment you are suffering from. All these things
are factors in growing up, all these things are standards of being an elder
statesman, a fountain head, a pillar of your bullshit community.
The larger, more off putting,
aspect of maturing, fine wine aging, settling, as it were, into your slow and
steady ruin, is that you’re at the elevated position to see and take stock, unequivocally,
of just how little all the other so-called adults are behaving around you! Now what
the fuck is all that about?
From the moment I hatched I got hit
in the head for everything. Hit in the head for bad grammar, for bad thoughts,
for selfishness, for tyrannical tendencies (don’t think kids are capable of
this? Stake out your local playground! Do this artfully or an aspect of pedophiliac
stalking might be ascribed to you as you sit and study adult larva in their
natural habitat. You don’t want none O’ that business! Earth tones, people,
appealing attire is preferred, no long coats or dark colored glasses! HEED ME
ON THIS!) I was hit for not listening, not falling in line, not aspiring to be
the best I could be. Clearly none of these other fully grown cretins around me
were hit, or even tapped a bit too hard when they made one or all of these many
faux pas against the serenity of common living. Adults are ruder today, more
greedy, more selfish, more self absorbed and entitled than ever the kids on the
playgrounds were! Remember the social disaster that were playgrounds, people? Remember
how we paired off, how we broke down our numbers into groups starting with the
stronger to the weaker? Remember not knowing how to pronounce political
correctness, much less living beneath its oppressive thumb? Remember
playgrounds?!!! Be you one of the lucky ones or one of the down trodden you
fucking remember the profound experience that were playgrounds! NOW FATHOM THAT
REAL WORLD ADULTS TODAY ARE WORSE THAN THE KIDS BACK THEN?!!!
Screw this shit, this growing up! What
the hell is it for, to get old and rickety and unable to even sit or stand when
you want without howling in pain? To not be able to drive anymore, to not be
able to walk up the stairs in your own home, to be confined in a bed room while
your mewling, good for nothing freeloading family has the run of your house, pillaging
and ransacking and gnawing and scraping and stealing you blind as you diminish
slowly away to nothingness on what you now suddenly realize is your own fucking
death bed. And no, you don’t fade out peacefully into some romanticized
spiritual beyond like Yoda! You explode into shriveled limbs and cracked flesh
like Dracula.
Fuck that shit, because it’s an
end, it’s THE end, it’s being put out to pasture, it’s being moved aside, it’s
being marginalized, categorized, stigmatized as something in the way, something
burdening, inconvenient. After you work your ass off to elevate the world to
the heights it has reached you are suddenly too incompetent to continue
cranking the wheel of progress and now you will unceremoniously be moved on
down the bench.
That’s what it means to be getting old, that’s what growing
up is, that’s why no one likes it.
Remember to call your Grandma if you haven’t done so this
week. She misses you!
You are embarking on an adventure...
Oh shit. I did it. I started on the road to actual adulthood. I began the process of buying a home.This is nerve-wracking. The concept of so much debt is staggering. The scrutiny by the financially-savvy moneylenders of all my poor choices in the past (yes, that debt was ex-husband's, but I had it in my name because I'm a doormat), the juggling of 401K loans, and gifts from relatives, and sexual favors in return for gifts from friends (I'm kidding... mostly.)
I'm up late every night with worry. I don't even have the apartment nailed down yet, and I am spazzing nightly about debt. I'm also spazzing over the possibility of not getting this place. I am so in love with it. It has a door to Narnia, for fuck's sake.
So I explored the concept of crowdfunding. Am I truly an adult if I'm appealing to my friends and strangers for financial help? I think I am. I have always been ready to help a person in need when I was in a position to do so. I will always do so in the future. I think this is an amazing tool for fostering community. I don't think it's wrong to utilize it. Still, I add to my list of nightly worries the concern that my friends think I'm weak and opportunistic.
But dammit! This apartment needs to be mine! Narnia!
Cross your fingers for me. Chant for me. Send good vibes my way. Pray for me. Whatever you can do to encourage the forces of this world to grant me this opportunity, do it. I would do the same for you!
Thursday, September 20, 2012
The Dinner Club
Oh reader, please do not comfort yourself with this missive. Do not settle into your cozy reading spot as through you are enjoying the works of James, London, Frost or Twain. My work is not pleasure reading but serves as a warning that there are things in our world, things unseen, things that man need not know to maintain his happy place in this world.My tale begins as a young man, growing up in the state of Connecticut. I was born to a prominent family. My father was a medical doctor and general practitioner. My mother was also from a prominent family. As my father finished medical school at Harvard, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, my maternal grandparents died and my parents inherited their lovely home in Providence. Things looked very well for me at the time of my birth. I would have every advantage. Unfortunately I brought great shame upon them when I was I was born without any fingers on my left hand. Well, I did have a thumb and nubs where the fingers should have been.
Childhood
Basically my childhood was the picture of a happy life. My parents taught and encouraged me, and they helped me any way they could to become whoever it was that I wanted to be.I have never come across another person who feels this way, at least not anyone I've discussed the subject with. I have a great relationship with my parents to this day, and wouldn't trade my experience growing up for anything in the world.
It does frighten me a little, to think about raising children some day. If almost no one seems to have the wonderful experience I've had...it must be really hard to create such an environment for a child. Will I be able to comfort and care for a child the way I felt cared for and comforted by my parents? I shouldn't let this worry sour me, but I am definitely taking my time before jumping into parenthood. Just in case there's some secret that I can decode and put into practice before becoming a parent and role model myself.
Surrogate topic
Rahlyns can't make it today, so I've been asked to pick the topic.Growing up
Have at it!
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
The Grand Dance
The Grand Dance is a festive occasion in which we all get to take part. We show up without a real party dress but over time to learn that it is a party and we dress the part. There are times when the table with the punch is empty, nothing to enjoy. There are times when the table is so full that food is spilling onto the floor.
Over time we begin to learn the dances, how to move our bodies to the beat of the music.
Too soon for some, we trip the light fantastic and it becomes time to make our last exit. If we are lucky, we get to make a grand exit with a lot of flurish. For most, it is a quiet passing through the exit that no one is paying any attention to and is unnoticed.
But always remember that it is a Dance, a gathering of people to move together to the music and to enjoy each others company.
Last Free Exit
You've been on this highway Since the other side of town
Last chance to get off
Center console's full of quarters
Is it worth the rest of the trip?
6 busy intersections left
Just a couple of bucks
For a fast trip down the way
Can you spare it?
No cops out today
Foot's feeling heavy
Fine, let's do this
Non-negotiable
No.... no, it doesn't work like that. This isn't something that you can just talk me out of by making a good enough offer, and I don't need to make some kind of offer to get you to accept it or allow it; it's just the way things are. Flip it around! What if I were to try and talk you over to where *I* am on this just by 'negotiation'?What am I offering? Uh... I dunno, twenty bucks and a bottle of wine?
.... well then. Pick you up at 8?
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
I give to you
Here I am, giving and giving. But only so much:My time, my money, my confidences, my body, and the parts of my mind that you can grasp.
Meanwhile, you're getting from other sources as well, and I'm saving up the balance
of whatever it is that I call myself. It's meager. It's limited.
My emotions leak out, but they aren't given.
You want to know the answers to your questions?
Yes. No. I don't know.
And yes, I do laugh during sex.
Shhhhhhh!!!
There are just some things you don’t say on a plane
Some argue it’s censorship, some say it’s a shame
But me, I think we’ve only ourselves to blame
The sights and sounds I have witnessed compel me to exclaim
That there are anecdotes and themes not to be uttered on a
plane
Words like ‘Bomb’, or ‘explode’, phrases like ‘open this
door!’
Declarations like ‘to my homeland now!’ in the patois of some
middle-eastern shore
and There are items, ideas of an unsavory sort
For instance refusing to share a seat with a Sikh might earn
you a nasty liberal retort
And Combustible underwear and incendiary shoes
Are certain to fill the air with harsh jeers and loud boos
There are also some things you don’t do on a plane
Mile high club not withstanding, just let me explain:
That whatever your stature, whatever your means
Pretending the wing’s on fire will be construed as obscene
And forget any plans you might have for a laugh
Don’t stand and start shouting ‘we’re all going to crash’
And needless to say, as just a sidebar kind of thing
We won’t tolerate your noticing that goblin out on our wing
cause see, we all know there are just some things you don’t
say on a plane
I’m not preaching to the deaf or chastising the lame
I am laboring greatly to spare you some dubious fame
From being the fool who misspoke or whom erred in vain
And did or said something stupid whilst we’re here on this
damned plane
Monday, September 17, 2012
Turbulance
The fuel tank is running lowIt seems we're going awfully slow...
Hey look! The bathroom's filled with snakes!
The pilot crew's a bunch of fakes!
Holy Crap! My sick bag's full!
Now I'm really on a roll
It seems we'll arrive an hour late
A missed connection might be your fate
Seat belts on...just in case
Turbulence is something to embrace
Lying
Lies.... they build up. One on top of the other, each lie neccesitated by and supporting the last, until there's a giant wall just to cover one tiny thing that wanted to remain hidden to begin with, a monstrous edifice to cover a tiny wound. And yet... they're so easy. Each lie along the way, so simple to make, easy to justify, just a single brick onto the structure of a terrible, terrible thing.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Sound Art
Yesterday we visited the Highline in New York City's Chelsea district. We brought with us a large number of extended family members. We saw pop-up marketplaces, restaurants, shops & so many pigeons!Along the Highline trail, my dad and I both heard a smooth, silver-tongued voice listing animal species slowly, sporadically in a British accent.
Dad and I silently looked around, hoping to catch a glimpse of the man speaking. However, we saw no one whose mouth appeared to be speaking the words.
Finally we discovered a sign explaining that what we were hearing was a sound art installation! Relieved that we could speak freely together about the odd succession of words we'd been hearing, we laughed and repeated after the recording as it said "The Good Animals......Penguin..Racoon..........Beaver...............................Elephant."
Silver Tongued
Fast talker. Con-man. Weasel. Sly devil. Compelling. Slick bastard. Charlatan. Tricky. Clever. Cunning. Gypsy. Guile. Clever. Witty. Swashbuckler. Quick fingers. Pickpocket. Persuasive. Thief. Cunning. Alluring. Seductive. Spy. Stalker. Shadowy lurker. Phantom. Performer. Charmer. Master of Disguise. Ninja. Spider. Effectual. Parasite. Fool. Reckless. Graceful. Knife fighter. Carnie. Hacker. Wheeler. Dealer. Peddler. Merchant. Double agent. Coercive. Two-faced. Silver-tongued. Crafty.When you're surrounded and outnumbered, your only defense is your tongue.
With the right words, spoken in just the right way, any man can be persuaded to perform any task.
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Friday, September 14, 2012
Coffee- er... Houseguests
I'm cleaning right now. Tomorrow I have people coming over to look at the house. A married couple. They seemed nice over email, but who knows once you get to meet them in person. And the best case scenario for me, no matter what they're like, is to get them to move in. That's my ultimate goal. I really can't go much longer without income.So I'm cleaning the kitchen furiously. I hate cleaning the kitchen and when I'm depressed - which I am - it's a nearly impossible psychological hurdle. So I listen to podcasts. It keeps me from thinking about the task, keeps my brain from proposing alternatives or distractions.
I do this with an old phone I have that is no longer a phone so much as a very small tablet. Unfortunately I seem to have lost it a few weeks ago, and now I don't know what to do. I can't find the damn thing anywhere. I have another old phone but it's an older version of Android so the stream gets interrupted occasionally and it's impossible to find my place again, especially when I'm scrubbing grime off the hidden bits of the fridge.
So I'm trying to come up with another way then, so I have a cup of coffee. I rarely drink coffee but I figure maybe I can speed myself up a bit, and then mmmm, I remember how good coffee is, a rare pleasure I allow myself, and oh god it's good. Just coffee and sugar and hazelnut cream and a cigarette. Why don't I do this more often?
I look at the coffee pot sometimes and it's like looking at liquor, early in the morning. You get this repulsive feeling, like some part of your brain saying "NO! That's not a consumable at this time of day." I get the same feeling with coffee all the time. Of course it's different when you get that caffeine high going.
I don't consume caffeine for the most part. I rarely drink soda and when I do it's usually non-caffeinated. The most caffeine I ever get, apart from my rare cups of glorious - mmmm, oh this is good - coffee, is the occasional Dr. Pepper I'll allow myself when I'm exceptionally busy or hungry. But I don't really get addicted to the stuff. Well I did once, but back then I was having several cups of coffee a night to stay up for the graveyard shift.
Come to think of it, I was thinner back then. Hmmm, you know, maybe I will drink more of this coffee. Give it another chance, another go. It is sooooo good...
Oh shit, the dishes, right, damn it the dishes. I'll finish this coffee and get back to them. Maybe one more cup. Damn it why did I tell them I could meet with them tomorrow? Sunday would have been better. I hate houseguests. Hopefully they'll be living here after tomorrow though. I'll cross my fingers and hang on to that idea. Shit I forgot how good this can be, even when it's not hot any longer...
RIGHT! Okay, the dishes.
Temporary Roommates
Temporary roommates
Are arriving today
I have no idea
How long they will stay
I'm afraid they'll be staying
Longer than most
I suppose it depends on
My composure as host
I'll show them the sights
There is so much to do
Restaurants, Museums
Perhaps a trip to the zoo
Botanical gardens
Galleries, Parks,
The aquarium to visit
The Hammerhead sharks
As the days turn to evenings
We'll head to the bars
Enjoy the night life
And look up at the stars
At the end of their trip
They'll be exhausted and happy
I expect their depature
Will make them feel crappy
Once again I will gain
Control of my home
Until it's my turn
to travel and roam
Invitation
So they say that a vampire cannot enter your home unless you invite them in.Have you ever considered that this particular bit of the mythos was invented by someone who was really peeved about a long-term house guest?
Vampires:
They are invited in.
It's a bitch to get rid of them once they've been invited.
They drain your life force by drinking your blood.
In stories told from the perspective of a non-vampire or would-be victim, the vampires' mannerisms and dress are always ostentatious and worthy of comment.
House guests:
They are invited in.
It's a bitch to get rid of them once they've been invited.
They drain your life force by eating the last of the cold cuts that you've totally been planning on using for your lunch for work, Goddammit.
Once a guest has stayed long enough, you start to get annoyed by everything the say, do, and wear.
Yeah, I think I'm sold on this theory.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Coyote's End Game
Dropped an anvil on his headSomehow he never winds up dead
Explosives delivered to his door
He continues coming back for more
Attach a rocket to my back
What could go wrong with this attack?
Perhaps I’ll shoot him into space
I’ll be a legend, not a disgrace
There’s a little Martian friend of mine
That can travel back in time
He’ll pick me up, Roadrunner too
And send us all to Timbuktu
It’s a sacrifice that I will make
He’s going down for goodness sake
One last goodbye my feathered friend
Your time on earth comes to an end
An Alternate Perspective on Time
"Well, the universe is actually lots and lots of universes," he said,
and his voice trembled because he knew how completely futile it would
be to tell anyone about it. And yet he still tries. "And they're all
like, one universe. One and many. Your experience through life, your
experience through time, is your position within the greater universe.
Think of it as your fourth dimensional location."Read more »
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Hemingway
When I started my journal in 2009, I wrote as often as I could, detailing my daily life. Small events and significant events filled the pages, as well as photos and a listing of what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read in the future.In the Spring of 2010, I picked up “A Moveable Feast” by Ernest Hemingway. Though I enjoy classic novels, something about Hemingway’s work intimidated me. I’d heard that “A Moveable Feast” was simply memoirs of his time spent in Paris in the 1920s. I was intrigued. I wanted to learn about his wife, his friendships with Erza Pound and F. Scott Fitzgerald, his inspirations and his early struggles as a writer.
So, I picked it up and absolutely loved it. So much so that I reviewed the book online and recorded the review in my journal. I also included the following quote on the cover of my journal from that year. It's a mantra of sorts that helped Hemingway is his daily writings...I will never forget it:
“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Sweet Genie Whom I Have Not Yet Met
Dear sweet genieI know of your mischief
But I know in your heart of hearts
You're not quite so malicious
Read more »
Monday, September 10, 2012
I swear
Oh, for fuck's sake. God dammit. Fuckity balls pantsington Santa Maria. Goat-shitting bastard. Dick Blick. Bitchtasm. Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick. Holy hell. Motherfuck. Fatherfuck. Cuntnugget. Spatula.
The woods are always greener...
“Oh bloody hell! He exclaimed.”
But that didn’t stop her from
slapping him again. He slumped in the driving seat of the car, She pulled back
to swat at him again but this time he ducked his head and she missed. She was
exasperated, breathing hard through her nostrils, heaving her chest with
tightly clinched teeth. He’d seen her like this before, and before he was often
dumb enough to keep needling her to press his point home. But tonight, tonight
he sorta thought better of it.
They
sat on the side of the road, the hazard lights blinking over and over again
casting a mellow yellow lighting that illuminated the trees of the woods
surrounding them. He didn’t like being parked there, stuck there essentially
speaking, under the circumstances, but at the moment it was better than driving
while she screamed at him.
“I’m
assuming you want me to apologize.” She says to him, speaking beneath her
natural tone of voice, looking away from him out the window at the big nothing
going on in the nighttime woods. Of course he wanted an apology. There was
never a reason for hitting and he wondered why girls were allowed to get away
with that. Now he should snap his head around and growl at her, damned right I
need an apology. Then again, this was not the moment for that, he just felt it
in the funny vibe in the air, he saw it in her body language as she slouched
uncomfortably in the passenger chair of his car, she wasn’t looking to be
alright, her back was arched, her eyes were lean reflecting back at him through
the window, this young miss wanted a fight, all he had to do to re-evoke
Ali/Frazier round two was say the wrong thing. And for him saying the wrong
thing was an uncannily easy skill.
In the
end he simply shook his head against the notion of an apology. He tapped at the
keys hanging from the chain, the bunch of them suspended above his knees, one
of them still lodged in the ignition. His finger gently took hold of the key
once more, he breathed out and his body looked as though he were deflating air
in his exhilaration. He turned the key for the fourth time. There was nothing
but a click again. It’s funny how cars felt lifeless, felt dead beneath your
feet when the battery gave out, as though the sentient life had just drained
out of it. the rub here was that his girlfriend, the one with the hitting
problem, had informed him that she didn't like the way that car started the day
before yesterday. She added.
"Pretty sure you're gonna need to change
that battery, PREFERABLY before we go to the Jones's all the way past
Manchester tomorrow night." He heard the words and processed them. He
nodded to the intrusive sound of them ripping through the peaceful humming of
his ear drums while he was watching Liverpool trounce Manchester united. Then
he did as he always did, he did nothing. he went about his business and
tonight, being stuck in the forest on the least used remote road in England was
the result. there came from her the inevitable deluge of four letter words, one
more colorful than the previous one. each one made him want to turn and defend
himself with some remarks of his own, but he knew that would again exasperate
the situation, so he just took it, trying over and over again to get life out
of the engine by fruitlessly turning that key again and again. his girlfriend
had become so disgusted she actually wore herself out yelling at him. so now
she sat, staring out the window, seething but too achy in the jaw to wag it at
her useless boyfriend any further. the palpable negative energy in his car was
so toxic that he found himself outside in a moment, checking tires he knew were
perfectly fine, kicking them with the toes of his boots, pressing them with his
thumb for the proper resistance. he was right, there was nothing wrong with
them. But at least for the moment he was free.
"Are
you kicking the tires, you moron? You know what you need to do, you dipshit?
you need to start kicking yourself in the head for letting this debacle happen,
you thundering idiot!" the deluge returns, somewhat muffled words of
hostility pelt him through the closed window on her side of the car. He
literally turns away to avoid their impact, as though they were rocks or some
other hard substance she was gleefully bouncing off his head from a close
distance. He spied the rich darkness of the leafy woods, the details of which
rising and falling from his sight with the blinking yellow lights of his
hazards. He suddenly wanted to be in the woods, far far far away from
what's-her-name in the cab of his car, fogging his windows with sonic bile, he
wanted to be out there in the woods. In a rash moment of complete impulse he
reached into his driver's side window and plucked the keys from the ignition.
this inspired a ringing silence from his companion, who watched him now with
more curiosity than anger. She watched him toss his keys into the woods on the
other side of the road! she heard him cackling, a sound she found somewhat
chilling. she rolled his window up. He
circled the car once before he blithely hopped from the road and into the
woods. It wasn't long at all until his yellow lights were out of range and of
no help to him. He'd gained in quite a distance in no time. the dark was so
encompassing, so embracing, so nurturing, from his perspective. the woods were
lovely dark and deep and he would never go back, he would never see that woman
or that car again. Inspired he began running, down a small embankment that lead
to who knew where, and who cared. Then he tripped. He tripped on a rock and
tumbled forward in the absolute black into what he presumed were going to be
nothing less than more sharp jagged rocks.
"Oh
blody hell!" he barked, just before he landed.
Pontoon Memories
Jamie and Tashe took a day trip to the Lake of the Ozarks and rented a pontoon boat. It was expensive to rent it for the whole day, but they had visions of reliving every favorite activity from their childhood lake adventures. A four-hour boat rental just wouldn’t be enough if they expected to go fishing, tubing, sun bathing and cliff diving.They picked the boat up early and their first stop was the bait shop and gas station located near the cove where they spent their childhood summers. After a disturbing trip to the back room, where they kept the bait and the leeches, they were off with their tackle boxes, heading down to a quiet cove to try their luck with catching dinner.
They’d stopped in a shady cove and parked their boat near the shoreline, quietly waiting for the bait to attract some fish. After waiting for an hour and a half, they were getting restless.
“This is really boring.” Said Tashe, finally breaking the silence between them. “Maybe we should do some boating and tubing?”
Jamie liked that suggestion, and the girls’ excitement with the days plans seemed to rejuvenate when the boat started moving and they could feel the air rush through their hair. Jamie stopped the boat and dropped the inner tube into the water, unlatched the small metal door of the boat and plopped herself face down onto the tube. “Me first!” She cried, and with her right foot she pushed herself and the tube away from the boat.
Tashe started the boat’s engine and slowly trolled away until Jamie was safely behind her, and then upped the boat’s speed slowly and the rope that tethered the boat to the tube pulled taut. She reached the pontoon’s top speed very quickly, and the whole experience was just way too easy. She tried to maneuver the boat in zigzags and circles, but Jamie held on tight and the pontoon did a poor job of creating the kinds of waves that will knock a rider off their tube.
So often when they were children, their uncles and grandfather took turns trying to knock the kids off the tube in a teasing, all-in-good-fun kind of way. Tashe just couldn’t seem to replicate the moves their elder relatives used to pull on the tube rider.
Tashe killed the engine, and Jaime let herself slide off the surface of the tube and into the cool water. She swam with the tube back to the boat and offered Tashe her turn to ride.
“No, thanks.” Tashe replied. “It seemed so much more thrilling when we were kids. Now it seems kinda....boring.”
Just then, a speed boat full of posh, young, British gents zoomed by and circled the girls’ pontoon. “Bloody Hell!” said Nick, the speed boat driver. “Would you take a look at those girls?” he asked his friends. “Why don’t we slow down and take a closer look?”
His friends agreed and they whipped around a tight curve to head back in the direction of Tashe and Jamie’s boat. Unfortunately, Nick didn’t see or hear the speed boat coming up behind him, and as soon as he got his boat turned around they crashed straight into the oncoming boat.
Tashe and Jamie saw the collision from their pontoon and concluded that this was simply a doomed outing they’d planned. Tashe took the wheel, started the engine and drove the pontoon up along side the crash site. She worked to help those knocked from their boats out of the water and onto their boat while Jamie called 911 in case anyone was hurt.
Maybe they would try again next summer.
20120910
Oh Bloody Hell, I have to get out the door. I have so many things to do and I'm so often paralyzed. It's hard to move these days but I'm doing it anyway. I just wish I had a sidekick. Anyway, lots of work to do and very little time to do it in.What happened to everyone? I was gone all weekend, and when I come back it's like Lacey's the only person still here.
Sunday, September 09, 2012
Beyond
It's not the moving, so much as the moving on.Shifting from place to place, moving around... it all seems fluid, even if it takes a bit to get over the inertia. It's moving past things up in the head that really blocks things off. Everything in the past locking you down, holding you still, binding in place.... it takes something more to snap out from there.
Failing
A light in the distanceShines through the open door
I lay, emerged in silent tears
Unsure of where to go
Immobile but shaking
I had a spark once
It had a good home
It was nurtured
Like any part of my soul
It guided me
It was stolen one day
Moved to another city
The subject of retrieving it
Comes up often
Except I cannot move forward
Without it
I'll never know
What someone sees
When they look at me
In the eye's reflection
I don't see mediocrity
Too often
Broken promises leave me
To fend for myself
If I'm being honest
I'm failing
A royal pain
When managing a hundred plus people is fun, engaging, and rewarding instead of a royal pain in the ass.... something's gone right.
Saturday, September 08, 2012
Quincy
One afternoon, William and Harry were hanging out with their older brother Quincy. The royal family has worked hard to keep Quincy's birth and existence a secret from the United Kingdom and the world. One day William will assume the crown, but only because so few people know that Quincy is the rightful heir to the throne.Quincy was born without legs, you see, and while he gets around fine in a customized wheelchair with remote controls and all the bells and whistles, the royal family didn't think he would make the proper, prominent king figure that the family had in mind.
So, Quincy lives in a modest flat in London where his brothers visit him often. While they typically get along very well, on this particular day Quincy was agitated and it seems that nothing William or Harry said to him would calm Quincy's nerves.
As the afternoon wore on, their quarrels became heated and eventually Quincy threatened to reveal himself to the people as the rightful heir to the throne. William, terrified of being exposed as a fraud all his life, tried to think quickly of a way to calm and silence his brother.
He excused himself and went to the kitchen to fetch a fresh cup of tea for himself and the others. He isn't used to doing tasks like this himself, and when reached into the cupboard for the sugar, he grabbed instead rat poison. He spooned the white powder into each of the three cups and brought them back to the living room with shaking hands, still trying to figure a way to defuse the situation.
He passed the tea around and they all took uncomfortable sips and continued their argument. After a short time, they all scrambled for the bathroom and practically knocked one another down, trying to be the first to reach the toilet. William knocked Quincy out of his chair and when Harry yelled at him for doing so, the two brothers with working legs fell to the floor fighting one another. The fighting turned to a romping, wrestling play fight that brothers enjoy so much and between the small amount of rat poison each ingested and the romping about with one another, they all proceeded to get very sick on one another and the floor surrounding them.
It was a terrible mess and they were all so embarrassed at the results of the meeting that they vowed never to speak of it again, solidifying William's place in line for the throne.
Friday, September 07, 2012
Sexual Cybernetics
One night I ran a current through her. She hadn’t done electroplay before which made it all the more exciting to me. I ran the current through her and then bound her to the bed, and began lightly dragging my fingers over her body, feeling the slight hot tingle of electricity as I watched the little electric arcs find their way through the thin veil of air between my skin and hers. She twitched and squirmed.Read more »
Connection
So maybe it’s just me, but to enjoy sex I need connection.I watch television and see men falling in love with the toasters, and while they’re undeniably beautiful they’re missing out on the supremely real women who surround them.
Relationships and sex differ for everyone, I assume. Some are satisfied to have one monogamous relationship, others need lovers on the side, others still desire multiple loving relationships and so on. What I know to be true of myself is a need for connection, longing, desire, romance and play.
Though, to write about a potentially humorous topic with absolute seriousness would be a waste. So, hypothetically the only way I’d ever have sex with a cyborg would be if I were tricked. If you could build a cyborg who started out as a desirable, funny, friendly guy I would probably befriend him. Then, as the friendship continued I’d find myself more and more interested, asking myself “Is this perhaps the PERFECT man?” and alternating that thought with the worry that something is wrong with everyone, and this guy must have a really serious issue if he seems so perfect in every other way.
So, I would start to assess the cyborg’s every move. Critical of every word he uttered and every move he made, I would watch him and wait for the imminent flaw to reveal itself. I would fall into a deep state of lust as he proved to me with every passing day that there was nothing wrong with him at all.
Eventually the temptation would be too great and I would give in to my desire. After an hour of passionate sex I’d lay on his smooth chest and ask him the burning question that I’d been too afraid to utter before this moment.
“So, I’ve got to know. You seem like the perfect man to me. There’s got to be something wrong with you. What is it?”
He’d twirl his fingers through my hair, look deeply into my eyes and answer “I am perfect. That’s how they built me.”
Cop Out, Volume II
"Road trip, how I have missed thee. How I yearn for the feelings you give me. How deeply I desire to produce merely to earn meager wages for the gas to put in my tank to make you possible. My car wants to be driven, NEEDS to be driven, YEARNS to be driven, but lo, I shall not drive it, for alas: I am broke, and I am stoned.""I'm driving, get in the car."
"Okay!"
Thursday, September 06, 2012
the road trip....
The arm is stretching out longer than the blurring
scenery. He stares out at it, lining his sight alongside of it, keenly focusing
on its curvature edges in contrast with the sharp groves and cuts that
comprised all the other objects in the forest, or the woods, or the park, or
the back yard, or wherever the hell he was just now at this very long and
slippery wet moment. As his arm shakes, jittering from the winter cold and
glistening from copious sweat, the notion of a terrible flu occurred to him,
but that thought vanished faster than his head had fired backwards from the
sneeze he blew out that hurt the back of his throat. His arm was still out
there, pointing maybe, or for balance, he’d forgotten why he’d sent it out
there, extended it into the open air. He thought it was funny that he forgot,
but in fairness he thought just about everything was funny now. Even the
burning at the back of his throat could not stem the tide of laughter, laughter
at the brown and gold falling leaves from the trees, laughter at the loss of
sensation in his frozen toes, laughter at the sun seemingly toppling from the
sky and falling into that stretch of mountains miles ahead of him.
His arm was out there, stretched
and he decided it was because he was pointing at something, someone, some
whatever…, he decided, with what little of him was left to decide with, that he
had taken interest in this mysterious thing ahead of himself, and pointed it
out to inform himself of it just before the mushrooms kicked in and made him
forget to care about just about everything.
Jesus
I hope it’s not a fucking wolf… he thinks. That thought comes through clear
enough. He heard that one and understood it, maybe he was even processing it,
maybe in a moment he would walk away or start jogging or something, somewhere in the opposite
direction of where he was pointing, maybe? Maybe turns to probably not as in
the next few seconds it becomes apparent to him that he remained still. It was
only the world that moved around and around and around in the corners of his
eyes. “There are no wolves in…” he stops again on that one, the idea of a
‘hungry wolf’ survives the current bout of his all too frequent mind wipes, These mushrooms are good! but what to do
about it, what to make of the idea of a man eating wolf closing in on him, what
will happen if they do indeed meet up, all of these are ideas that came pretty
easily moments ago but are now suddenly swallowed up and spit clear through the
fictitious hole somewhere at the top of his head.
My
fucking arm is tired. Comes his inner voice, this is nothing about the damned
wolf, this is about…,
what
is it about?...Oh, This is about the stiffness in his arm pit!
Yeah
that sucks, should oughta maybe do something about that, post haste, no?...
no?...Yes, then? Goes the chirping voice. It’s almost meaningless to him
almost as soon as he hears it.
What
the hell was it going on about? What arm? What oughta-shoulda-coulda-woulda,
what? He puts his arm down to turn to speak to the him he thinks is beside
himself whispering at him with his own voice. No one’s there, of course, no one
was ever there, and probably no one was whispering, but at least that arm pain
was slowly going away now, for some reason.
Stupid,
goes the whisper.
He swats at his ear as though his
head is surrounded by flies. He decides to ignore any voice that sounds like
his no matter where it comes from. Damn, these mushrooms are good! He staggers
a moment, having not found the him he thought he would find spinning around to
see if he could see him. I had three,
should have only taken one… he thinks, another clear thought, one he would
have agreed with if he’d remembered he’d thought it a moment after it came out
of his mind. It’s cold out here, but it’s
hot. He thinks, his feet are completely numb to the touch, the needles are
prickling him up to his knees, but at this moment he doesn’t know if he’s too
hot or too cold…, there’s copious water coming from the sky, but he was just
striding through the droplets, not getting a drop on him, slipping down through
life as it were. Damn, these mushrooms
are GOOOOOOOD! I just wish it would stop
snowing…
Instantly a giant monster was on
him, roaring, and blowing a horn as it moved at fantastic speed toward him.
It’s eyes were glowing bright and blinding, coming, coming down on him, coming
in at him. He shook, aware of the danger, all of a sudden aware, but not
inclined to move, to even save himself at the last moment. Huge screaming monsters, damn these mushrooms are good! It was
blowing a horn again, ten feet tall and blasting him with this deep sonic
sound. It’s round rubber legs peal
sheets of water from the flat flat grey ground, at last he steps back, beside
one of his tree friends. The rolling legs gallop by, the monsters giant red
metal head blasting that horn, a long trailer is hitched to the back of the
beast as it rushes by on the road. A deluge of murky water showers him from the
wheels of the speeding truck before it shrinks into the grey horizon several
miles away. In a moment its quiet again. He steps out from behind the tree, ice
cold water coating his skin, sobriety becoming a closer companion now that it
had been just a few minutes earlier. Yeah, he thinks, breathing heavily and
shivering. These mushrooms are damned good,
but maybe tripping by the side of this road was a terrible idea!
Road hypnosis
If I'm on the road for more than 20 or so minutes and I'm at all tired, the potential for me to fall asleep behind the wheel is pretty great. My trips to and from Lincoln go by in the blink of an eye.
Save yourself a trip
The middle of the state is bone dry.You won't find a drop of water except in some private pool
and farmers are giving up, packing up, rolling up.
Still, cars go by, people count their money, and folks consider
dousing their fields in propane, ethane, methane, petroleum.
We have a candidate who wants to pipe that shit through these dry scrub brush lands.
She owns some of them. It's a mystery where she's buying her water.
"You know, brown's actually a pretty color."
Shit brown, mud brown, bark brown, but not corn brown or beans brown. Dust brown.
"Brown me up one of them cows over yonder. Can't afford the feed anyhow."
Burnt brown.
So enjoy your day trip. Bring your ironic fuel and stop by the truck stops for water.
They're awful nice.
They'll stay in business as long as there's insurance money to spend.
They say you can still live the good life if you are willing to burn corncobs for fuel.